


There was a place somewhere

by bellapendragon



Category: The Half of It (2020)
Genre: Coda, F/F, Internalized Homophobia, Pining, Religious Guilt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-02
Updated: 2020-05-14
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:14:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23963710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bellapendragon/pseuds/bellapendragon
Summary: She’s still two days from Iowa when it happens. Her phone buzzes, and it’s not one of the fifty-or-so identical pictures of sauce that Paul insists is drastically different from the last. It’s not the daily check-in from her dad, either.DiegaRivero: So, any idea what you’re majoring in? I don’t see the “Heathen” track listed on the catalog
Relationships: Ellie Chu/Aster Flores
Comments: 125
Kudos: 1831





	1. Freedom

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Title comes from a quote from this interview I think about a lot:
> 
> “‘I would get up at one or two a.m. and I would call every gay bar I had the number to from the 1940s. I wouldn’t say anything. I would just stay on the phone and listen to the sounds in the background. I would stay on until they hung up, and then I would call another one of my numbers, until I had called all the numbers I had … That phone. Those numbers. That was my lifeline … It meant there was a place somewhere — even if I couldn’t go there — that place was out there. I could hear it. Freedom.’ She called the bars two to three times a week like this — for fourteen years.”  
> —
> 
> From an interview with Myrna Kurland in Baby, You Are My Religion: Women, Gay Bars, and Theology Before Stonewall, by Marie Cartier (2013).
> 
> See end notes for the references these two pretentious nerds are making all the time

She’s still two days from Iowa when it happens. Her phone buzzes, and it’s not one of the fifty-or-so identical pictures of sauce that Paul insists is drastically different from the last. It’s not the daily check-in from her dad, either.

_DiegaRivero: So, any idea what you’re majoring in? I don’t see the “Heathen” track listed on the catalog_

Her heart leaps. She spends an embarrassing amount of time staring stupidly at the phone, tracing the lettering on the screen. Willing for it to be real.

_SmithCorona: Really? I could have sworn it was listed right next to “Indecision, comma, reveries”_

The phone buzzes again, five minutes later, and she releases a breath she didn’t know she had been holding.

_DiegaRivero: Ha. Plath went to a small liberal arts school too. Bodes ill for you…_

Two minutes later:

_DiegaRivero: Besides. Reveries aren’t the worst use of my time_

Her throat goes dry at this.

_SmithCorona: You’re lucky I’m above reaching for the low-hanging fruit. Not use pointing out all the artists who cut off body parts_

The next reply comes back within a minute.

_DiegaRivero: Hmm, or maybe you just can’t think of more than one?_

Smiling, she reaches into her dad’s food pack for a dumpling. It’s cold and hard, but somehow the best thing she’s ever eaten.

\---

The orientation leader had warned them that the first night would be the hardest. She just hadn’t expected it to apply to her. She’d had a whole week to prepare on the train. Plus, she was in constant touch with her dad and Paul. And, well, Aster, too.

There wouldn’t be any time for falling apart anyways, with how busy the first day of orientation is. There’s the three rounds of check-in (one for her ID, one for her dorm key, and one “general”, which is stupid and inefficient), the move-in that takes embarrassingly little time with how few possessions she has, the Dean’s address, student panels, and seemingly endless icebreakers. She wonders how many different ways she can tell people that she spent five years as a train station assistant before they realize it’s the only interesting anecdote she’s got.

By the end of the day, she finally checks her phone to see three missed calls from her dad, _thirteen_ messages from Paul, and one from Aster.

_paulmunskyawesomesauceguy: did u kno ur dad is allergic 2 raisins????_ _🍇🤮🍇_

_paulmunskyawesomesauceguy: u know what i think hes just lying so he doesnt have 2 eat my new taco recipe_ _😠🍇_ _🌮_

_paulmunskyawesomesauceguy: O SHIT HE’S RLY ALLERGIC. DONT WORRY I’M ON IT!!!!!!!!!!_

_paulmunskyawesomesauceguy: hey he is ok!!!!!_ _😊_ 👍 🐱 🥗 🍍

_paulmunskyawesomesauceguy: look heres a pic of him totally healthy_

_paulmunskyawesomesauceguy:got him a zyrtec and hes all good_ _💊_ _💊_ _😇_

 _paulmunskyawesomesauceguy: hes gonna take a_ _nap he’s_ _💩_ _💩_

_paulmunskyawesomesauceguy: (that means he is pooped)_

_paulmunskyawesomesauceguy:_ _i messed this up i was gonna send u a video of the two of us eating our awesome tacos_ _🌮_ _🌮_ _🌮_ _and wishing u good luck on ur 1 st day!!_

_paulmunskyawesomesauceguy: srsly tho good luck I want 2 hear all about it_

_paulmunskyawesomesauceguy: its gonna be awesome bcos u are awesome and the best student they r ever gonna get_

_paulmunskyawesomesauceguy: ur dad is awake from nap and fine! here is another pic!_

_paulmunskyawesomesauceguy: how long does orientation take????_

_DiegaRivero: Good luck today. Grinnell won’t know what hit them when they meet the girl who’s not just a girl._

She rolls her eyes and calls first her dad, then Paul. Her dad laughs off the raisin incident, claiming he hadn’t tried one in so long he wasn’t even sure he was allergic anymore. Paul is appropriately apologetic, and she doesn’t even find it in herself to berate him as much as she had planned. When he asks her the same question that her dad had, she falls silent. She could answer noncommittally again, but-

“It was… big.”

“Like the campus is big?”

“No! Well… yes, but. No. It’s just… a big world. Everyone seems to fit in already, and I just don’t know.”

“Don’t know what?”

“Don’t know if I ever will.” This last part is admitted so quietly that she’s not sure he even hears her. He does, though. He’s always been good at that.

He’s silent for a minute before he responds.

“You remember what you told me the first time you showed me how to signal trains?”

“‘Don’t use that one, idiot, you’ll make the trains crash’?”

“I mean, yeah, but the other thing. About why the booth’s important.”

She remembers.

“You told me it’s the station manager’s job to keep everything running smoothly. And that everyone on the train has important, busy lives that you need to make sure they can get to. But Ellie, it’s more than the trains. It’s _you._ You spend all your time taking care of everyone else! You never get to do your own thing. This is the first time you’re gonna be on your own, getting to figure out what you want to do and what you want your life to look like. Just like getting good at football, it takes practice. It’s scary at first.”

The sudden, hot rush of tears startles her, and she has to swallow hard before responding.

“You’re right.”

“I know I am.”

“Don’t let it go to your head. You still almost killed my dad today.”

When he starts again with the vehement protests and apologies, she smiles and settles in.

It’s much, much later before she starts preparing for bed. Her roommate Laurel, a born-and-raised Iowan, seems nice enough. Her parents have been in and out all evening, bringing a seemingly endless stream of things for her side of the room. Ellie can’t fathom where she’s going to fill all of this stuff, but tries not to stare as her parents set up the mini-fridge, microwave, toaster, fan, and space heater. She feels, suddenly, starkly, lonelier than she had since leaving Squahamish. Her few belongings look even smaller in comparison to Laurel’s thick duvet and plush rugs. For some reason, this is when she finally messages Aster back.

_SmithCorona: It’s a brave new world. Grinnell stretches out as an emptiness before me._

_DiegaRivero: You’ve done your day’s work. Now you can put your feet up and enjoy it._

_DiegaRivero: Seriously though. Want to talk about it? Give me some tips on what to expect in art school?_

_SmithCorona: Yes._

She will remember, years later, that this is the first time she talks to Aster on the phone.

\---

That night, sleep eludes Ellie, even after Laurel is finally asleep after silently crying into her pillow and trying to hide it. They haven’t put curtains up, and moonlight leaks onto the ceiling, casting weird shadows. She can’t remember the last time she’s slept under a different ceiling, besides that one drunken night at Paul’s that she can’t even remember.

One of the shadows is shaped like a water lily. Her mother loved water lilies, said they reminded her of Xuzhou, painted them everywhere. When Ellie was thirteen, she had tossed all those paintings into a box at the back of their storage closet to make sure her dad wouldn’t see them. Somehow, it’s this memory that finally breaks the floodgates, and she starts sobbing uncontrollably. She buries her face in her pillow in an attempt to quell the choking noises that she can’t appear to contain, but Laurel does not stir. _Thank God for small mercies_ , she thinks to herself wildly, and then snorts a wild laugh in the middle of a sob. She’s thanking a God she doesn’t even believe in.

It’s a long time before the tears dry out and she falls into a restless sleep. She dreams of trains running over her mother’s paintings as her and her dad desperately run after the trains themselves. They’re trying to catch someone. When they reach the right train, the paintings are destroyed but her mother catches her arm and pulls her into the safety of the compartment. Her eyes are bright and full of laughter as she puts a palm on Ellie’s cheek and kisses her forehead.

When she wakes up, she keeps her eyes closed to preserve the feeling of her mother’s loving touch on the right side of her face. It’s not until she opens her eyes that she realizes she’s feeling the warmth of the sunlight streaming through the curtainless windows.

\---

On the second day of orientation, the whole freshman class does an activity called “step in”. They stand in a circle, and the moderator calls out prompts. Whoever identifies with the prompt steps into the center. The first few are easy- “Step in if you are attending college for the first time. Step in if you slept in a dorm last night. Step in if you have Samantha Collins as your orientation leader.”

When the moderator tells people to step in if they identify as Asian, she finds herself part of a group of roughly fifteen students that do so. She cannot stop staring, even after they’ve stepped back into the circle. She has never seen this many Asians in her life. She’s never seen any Asians, period, outside of her dad and the checkout clerks at Asian grocery store.

The prompts keep coming. She makes note of the people who step in because they’ve experienced the loss of a loved one, those who are interested in philosophy, and those who have high spice tolerances. She mostly can’t relate to the others (“Step in if you have a Midwestern accent”, “Step in if you say pop instead of soda”).

Then, one of the last ones: step in if you identify as part of the LGBTQA+ community.

Her eyes widen as she sees the number of people stepping in. Twenty, then forty, almost half of the entire class. She’s frozen in fear for a moment. She thinks back to Paul telling her that this is the first time she gets to dictate who she is, what she wants her life to look like.

She swallows her fear and steps in.

\---

She signs up for two traditional classes required for engineering-track students, but decides to try two unrelated ones, just for fun. It goes against her every impulse to do it, but she has a four-year scholarship and plenty of time to finish an engineering degree. To her surprise, her advisor gestures at Mrs. Geselschap's recommendation letter and tells her that if she wants, she can skip the philosophy prerequisite and enroll in a 200-level class. She signs up for intro to philosophy anyways. Just because she was a smart fish in a Squahamish pond, doesn’t mean she’s cut out for the real world.

\---

She drops the class a week later. When she tells Aster that she registered instead for PHI 214 (Existentialism), her phone buzzes all day with Kierkegaard quotes. When she tells Paul the same thing, he asks her if that means she’ll spend the whole class getting stoned and listening to Pink Floyd.

\---

She notices that a girl sits next to her in every Intro to Global Development Studies class. Two weeks later, the girl introduces herself as Joleen and asks if she wants to study for the upcoming exam together. Ellie bites back her instinctual response that she studies best alone, and agrees.

They end up abandoning the idea of studying an hour in and ordering from a local Chinese place. She learns that Joleen is from Korea and moved to Canada with her family when she was three years old. When she describes the Toronto suburbs she grew up in as “whiter than an episode of Gilmore Girls,” Ellie finds herself laughing harder than she could ever remember doing. There’s a sudden levity taking over her, an almost perverse elation at sharing this feeling of cultural isolation with someone else. They spend the next two hours swapping stories, making up increasingly ludicrous predictions based on their fortune cookies, and laughing until they’re clutching their stomachs in pain.

They never try to study together again, but spend most of their time camped out in Joleen’s dorm room (a single, since her roommate moved out sometime in the first week) anyways. Mid-semester, they attend the student organization recruitment fair together; Joleen notices Ellie’s eyes darting to the Stonewall Resource Center’s table and drags her over to sign them both up for the GLBTQ issues mailing list. They watch one of Ellie’s favorite movies, Joseph Campbell’s “The Power of Myth” over and over again, with the compromise that they do the same with Joleen’s DVD of “Bend it Like Beckham”.

In the backdrop of her classes, bad cafeteria food, Joleen, the Stonewall Resource Center and Asian American Association meetings she’s started attending, the constant back and forth with Paul and Aster gives her an undercurrent of home that keeps her grounded.

\---

_DiegaRivero: So you’re coming home for winter break? Any plans?_

The anxiety spike from this text keeps her awake for a long time that night.

\---

Joleen drops her off at the train station, carries her bag up to the waiting bench. After they say their goodbyes, she sticks around for a minute, looking unusually wrong-footed.

“Listen, I didn’t know how to bring this up. I told myself I’d do it before you left, but…”

“Bring what up?” Ellie is confused, and Joleen continues to look uncomfortable.

“Well, we’ve been spending a lot of time together, and I thought I’d ask if you… I mean, I wanted to tell you that I… oh, fuck it.”

Before Ellie can process what’s happening, Joleen darts close and kisses her, briefly but firmly, on the mouth.

Holy shit.

Joleen steps back, looking worried.

“Oh fuck. Did I just mess everything up? I just wanted to tell you… that I like you. That I like you more than as friends. And I thought break would be a good time to let you think about it when I’m not around. But I just messed it up, didn’t I?”

Ellie’s brain is numb, and it takes her a moment before she can find the words to respond. She doesn’t know why she’s surprised, but she is. She didn’t know how to do this, has never been in a world where it wasn’t tremendously dangerous to be this way, to assume these things about a relationship. She opens her mouth to answer, but Joleen beats her to it.

“You know what, don’t say anything right now! Just… think about it, okay? You have my number. I’ll see you when you get back.”

And she’s off, running back to her car before Ellie can get a word in.

\---

 _paulmunskyawesomesauceguy: woah like she kissed u for real???_ _👩❤️_ _💋_ _👩_ _was there tongue??_ _👅_ _🍉_ _🦉_

_EllieChu: YOUR EMOJIS ARE SO CONFUSING_

_EllieChu: Grow up. No tongue. It was less than a second._

_paulmunskyawesomesauceguy: how do u feel about it?_ _🧠_ _🐛_ _🐒_ _🇦🇷_

_EllieChu: I don’t know…_

_EllieChu: You know that’s the ARGENTINA FLAG, right?_

_paulmunskyawesomesauceguy: ok but did u like it? did it make you feel good?_ _🎆_ _🎉_ _🎊_

 _paulmunskyawesomesauceguy:_ _🇦🇨_ _🇦🇩_ _🇦🇪_ _🇦🇫_ _🇦🇬_ _🇦🇮_ _🇦🇱_ _🇦🇲_ _🇦🇴_ _🇦🇶_

_EllieChu: I don’t know. Honestly… I don’t think I felt anything… just surprised. Stop sending flag emojis._

_paulmunskyawesomesauceguy: is it rly that surprising? arent u guys in that club together? both gay? spend all ur time together?_ _🤔_ _🤔_ _🤔_

 _paulmunskyawesomesauceguy:_ _🏳️_ _🌈_ _🏳️🌈_ _🏳️🌈_ _🏳️🌈_ _🏳️🌈_ _🏳️🌈_ _🏳️🌈_ _🏳️🌈_ _🏳️🌈_ _🏳️🌈_ _🏳️🌈_ _🏳️🌈_ _🏳️🌈_ _🏳️🌈_ _🏳️🌈_ _🏳️🌈_ _🏳️🌈_ _🏳️🌈_ _🏳️🌈_ _🏳️🌈_ _🏳️🌈_

_paulmunskyawesomesauceguy: p.s. is it cool to say ‘u guys’ since ur both girls? is there a better phrase?_

_EllieChu: I just thought we were being friends. It honestly didn’t occur to me._

_EllieChu: It’s actually super offensive. You need to refer to us as “your resplendencies.” It’s the new LGBTQ terminology._

_paulmunskyawesomesauceguy: o shit srry! i’m still learning!_

_paulmunskyawesomesauceguy: just googled that word. ur messing with me. just for that im going to spam u the rest of the flags of the_ _🌎_ _🌎_ _🌎_ _🌎_ _🌎_ _🌎_

_paulmunskyawesomesauceguy: maybe it didnt occur to u bc u never thought of yourself as available. uve been talking to aster this whole semester right? does it feel like ur single when you like her so much?_

She blocks him when he follows through on his promise to send the rest of the world’s flag emojis, which is just as well, because she has no response to that last message.

\---

When she arrives back in Squahamish, her dad and Paul are waiting. Her dad envelops her in a hug that smells like five-spice powder and the mildew of the train station booth. She holds him longer than she means to, burying her face in his chest and holding on, swaying. When she lets go, Paul crushes her in a hug of his own that lifts her off her feet. He spins her around until she smacks at him to put her down. As they eat dinner, Paul insists that she grew taller in Iowa while Ellie tells him that it’s physically impossible. Her dad keeps loading her plate with more braised pork and rice, and she is home.

She’s lying in her bed that night, impossibly full and more comfortable than ever, when her phone buzzes.

_DiegaRivero: Welcome home. Mineral spring, tomorrow at noon?_

\---

When Aster shows up to pick her up the next morning, her heart is in her throat. It occurs to her that it’s somewhat ridiculous to be nervous- they’ve spent the last four months talking every day. If nothing else, ignoring her own feelings, they must at _least_ qualify as best friends. This logic doesn’t stop her from having to remind herself to breathe when the car pulls up. She thinks she’s playing it pretty cool, and then promptly bangs her head on the doorframe when trying to get in. Smooth.

She swears and clutches at the fast-forming lump on her forehead. Suddenly, Aster is standing next to her and gently prying her hand away.

“Oh my god, are you okay? I always tell my family that the frame is too low on this thing!

Ellie can’t focus, because Aster’s long, slender fingers are gently prodding at the aching spot on her forehead. The smell of Aster’s perfume (is it lilac? lavender?) is suddenly _right there_ , clouding her senses in a very real way. It’s too much for Aster to just be there, in front of her all of a sudden, when Ellie had been sufficing with imagining it for so many months. She just stands there blinking, which seems to alarm Aster even more.

“Ellie? Are you okay? Let’s get something frozen to put on that.”

She starts to move towards the house when Ellie finally snaps to her senses.

“No!” She grabs Aster’s wrist to stop her.

“I’m fine, really. Just bad luck. What was that thing that Camus says? Remaining in today’s world, one must have a little luck? Guess I’m screwed.”

Aster looks at Ellie’s grip on her wrist, back up at her, and smiles.

“Yeah, you only have the unfailing energy and unwavering intensity bit. It’s the hard knock life for you.”

Ellie can just smile stupidly back.

“You sure you’re up for the spring?”

“Trying to get out of driving, Flores?”

“Get in, loser. We’re going swimming.”

\---

The place is just as magical as Ellie remembers. The ferns around the spring are long and furled, growing in the middle of winter from the heat of the water. The steam from the water spirals into the air. The trees barely quiver in the wind, packed thick as they are, green and lush as ever. There’s hardly any greenery in Iowa, especially in winter, and Ellie doesn’t realize how much she’s missed the sight until now. It’s almost a healing color, green, and she can’t take the whole scene in fast enough.

And then of course, there’s Aster, stripping down to her bathing suit in the water. She remembers how her breath hitched last time she saw this, how quickly she’d looked away and felt the heat rising in her cheeks. She doesn’t look away, this time. It scares her.

Aster turns to look at her and for a moment, Ellie is dumbstruck. She can sense how stupid she’s sounding her head, wants to shove herself in a locker for the sappiness in her thoughts, but she can’t stop it. There, in the middle of the green, steam rising all around her, half deep in the silver water, she looks like some kind of goddess. Like Artemis, taking a break from the hunt, and Ellie, a mere mortal, is intruding on some ancient scene. Suddenly, her bundle of androgynous clothing feels even more ungainly. She breaks the eye contact, looking down.

“What are you waiting for? Get in!”

She does, with trepidation. When Aster splashes on her, her bruised forehead stings and the spell is broken. This is Aster, she reminds herself, the Christian with an unnatural interest in Nietzsche, the girl who laughs so hard she snorts when Ellie tells her about Dr. Brotter’s weird ideas about the Global South, the weirdo who wishes it were safe to eat toothpaste for fun. The one smiling at her, nervously, right now.

She stops hesitating and sends a wave of water crashing over Aster’s head.

\---

That night, she calls Joleen to tell her that unfortunately, there’s someone else in her life. It’s a long conversation, but the sadness in Joleen’s voice dims by the end when she starts gleefully asking for more and more details about Aster. When they hang up, Joleen assures her that she’ll be waiting at the train station at the end of break with their favorite takeout and Joseph Campbell’s “The Hero’s Journey”, and everything feels better than it did when they started.

\---

Winter break passes in a haze of Paul, her dad, and Aster, oftentimes in odd combinations of all of those people. On the day before she’s set to return to Grinnell, she’s having lunch with Paul and Aster at Sparky’s Diner, in what has become a regular occurrence. As she watches them argue about the proper design for the Squahamish founders’ day float, it strikes her how not-weird this whole situation is. She smiles when Aster reaches over and helps herself to the pickles on Paul’s plate.

Afterwards, she’s heading over to Paul’s car to ride home with him when he stops her.

“Actually, can you go with Aster? I need to go visit the butcher before going home.”

“I don’t mind coming to Hal’s with you, I can say hi-”

“Hal doesn’t want to see you!”

“…What?”

“I mean. Of course he wants to see you, he’s just…” Paul looks shifty, and he throws a pleading look over Ellie’s shoulder, where Aster has just walked up.

“He’s just, uh, sad to see you go! So let’s not make him more sad! I’ll just see you later at your place for dinner.”

Ellie rolls her eyes.

“I can tell you’re lying to me, I just don’t really care why. Fine, I’ll see you later.”

As she gets into Aster’s car, she sees Paul grin supportively at Aster. She gives Aster a curious look of her own as she gets into the driver’s seat. Aster silently watches Paul drive away, and then sighs.

“Okay, fine. I told him I needed to talk to you, so he was making sure I didn’t chicken out.”

It’s so annoying how predictably her heart starts picking up the pace.

“Talk to me about what?”

They still hadn’t talked about it. They’d covered every topic from Aster’s portfolio to the quality of the food on Grinnell’s tofu Fridays, but still not one mention of the kiss, or what they were to each other.

In answer, Aster swallows and hands Ellie two opened envelopes. When she reads the contents of the second one, she stops breathing for a second. Blinks, and re-reads it. Finally, she looks back up at Aster, who is watching her nervously.

“You got in.”

“I got in.”

“Cornish and…”

“University of Iowa, Art School.”

Her throat is dry all of a sudden.

“I didn’t know you applied to Iowa.”

Aster looks a little pale.

“I…didn’t know I wanted to apply. Until I did. And then I got these early admission offers just before you got home. I wanted to tell you in person.”

Ellie swallows

“So, it looks like you have a choice to make.”

“I do.”

They are silent for a beat.

“Ellie, I-”

“Look, I-”

They both speak at once and stop suddenly, color rising in both of their faces. Ellie nods at Aster to talk first.

“I still need a couple years. There’s still so much I’m not sure about. But maybe…maybe I can figure it all out while being within seventy miles of you.”

Ellie can’t breathe. She’s suddenly, uncontrollably reminded of some stupid romcom she watched with Paul on cable, and how relentlessly she’d mocked the heroine for not being able to form a coherent sentence in front of her love interest.

Aster is still looking at her, increasingly anxious by the second, and all there’s only one thing Ellie can think to say, in an insufferably smug voice:

“Wow, you looked up how close it is?”

Aster looks like she wants to roll her eyes so hard, were it not for the relief in her posture and the smile breaking out on her face.

“Bold strokes, right?”

Right. Bold strokes.

Later, Ellie can’t remember who reached for who, only that one minute they are separate, and the next, they’re kissing.

In the back of her head, she’s faintly aware that her glasses must be poking Aster in odd ways, but for the life of her can’t think to try to fix it when Aster is pressing open-mouthed kisses all over her face and jaw. Breathless, she curls a hand into the soft hair at the nape of Aster’s neck and drags her back, crushes their mouths back together. Aster lets out a soft gasp at this, and starts kissing her deeper, harder. Ellie’s brain is short-circuiting, the lilac-lavender smell overtaking her and each kiss sending thrills down her spine. There’s no way, she thinks wildly, no way that anything this electrifying could be anything but good. That the two of them could be anything but good.

When they finally break apart, breathing hard, Aster looks completely dazed, her lips kiss-swollen. Ellie knows she must not be faring any better. Swallowing hard, she reaches for Aster again. This time, their foreheads clank together, hard, and they both leap apart.

“God!”

“Fuck!”

Through the pain, Ellie registers dimly that Aster has started laughing, clearly having just lost her entire mind. The laughter is contagious though, and they are soon both laughing too hard to breathe. When it dies down, they slump against each other, exhausted, delirious, breathless.

Ellie turns and touches her injured forehead to Aster’s.

“So, bold strokes?”

Aster inhales and exhales softly before answering, quietly. Ellie’s eyes are closed, but feels Aster's mouth turning upward into a smile.

“Know any paintable walls in Iowa?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's no real purpose to this! I just started feeling many deep things about these characters and this movie and wrote some things! Also yes, I looked up the student activities & course listing for Grinnell College I'm gay leave me alone.
> 
> The Slyvia Plath reference: "Indecision and reveries are the anesthetics of constructive action." - Sylvia Plath
> 
> Ellie & Aster's back and forth about Grinnell stretching out as emptiness etc. etc. are from the book that Aster brings Paul on their first date, "The Remains of the Day" by Kazuo Ishiguro:
> 
> "The rest of my life stretches out as an emptiness before me." / "The evening's the best part of the day. You've done your day's work. Now you can put your feet up and enjoy it."
> 
> Lastly, that quote about luck from Albert Camus (an existentialist, someone that is listed in PHI 214's course's description on Grinnell's website lmao): "To remain a man in today's world, one must have not only unfailing energy and unwavering intensity, one must also have a little luck."
> 
> Also, I just assume that Aster would quote Kierkegaard when she finds out Ellie's in an Existentialism class because the dude was pretty deep into Christianity lol. And yes, that's an intentional Mean Girls reference!


	2. ...and the road to it

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aster Flores arrives at college with three bags, two hickeys, and a crapload of guilt. The bags are quickly unloaded, the hickeys easy enough to hide. The guilt, though, takes her a bit longer.
> 
> \---
> 
> Wow, I am overwhelmed by all the feedback on this little thing I wrote! You guys are too sweet! Here is some more, and an epilogue is coming very soon. Note that this chapter is a lot angstier because it's Aster POV and that girl's got some religious trauma to contend with... I definitely stole a lot from my own experience coming to terms with being gay lol.
> 
> Warnings for this chapter: Internalized homophobia, self-loathing, religious grief/trauma, mentions of racism

Aster Flores arrives at college with three bags, two hickeys, and a crapload of guilt. The bags are quickly unloaded, the hickeys easy enough to hide. The guilt, though, takes her a bit longer.

\---

It’s a long drive from Iowa. Ellie makes quick work of dividing her CD collection into three piles: a) excellent, b) acceptable, and c) burn immediately to cleanse of sin. To her credit, the pile of excellence is the biggest; but when Laura Nyro’s _More Than A New Discovery_ gets put in the burn pile, it launches an intense debate that spans three hours and two states.

Aster’s never been on a road trip like this. Her drives to and from Sacramento are typically dominated by her parents or friends, requiring very little input from her. She has never talked this much in a car. Never laughed this much, either. Ellie, she learns, won’t put her feet up on the dashboard without socks, hates pickles on her burgers, and is an insufferable elitist about the sound editing in podcasts. They try to listen to the _Remains of the Day_ audiobook, but realize it’s a failed mission when they can’t get through ten minutes without one of them pausing to comment. They spend two hours on the phone with Paul, who yells excitedly about an interested merchant coming to sample his new sausage recipe. Despite having just seen him two days ago, Aster feels a pang of homesickness at his voice. From the look on Ellie’s face, she is feeling the same.

The sun is setting by the time her parents call to check in. She assures them that she’s driving safely, she’ll check in when they arrive, and she loves them. When they ask how her friend is doing, she glances at Ellie, asleep in the passenger seat. Her cheek is smushed onto the window. The sunset is blanketing her with a crimson glow. She looks ethereal, almost holy. Suddenly, her throat is dry.

“Ellie is fine.”

\---

It’s a slightly awkward business, arriving at their Airbnb and realizing that the room only has one bed. They don’t say anything about it, but there’s a slight tension in the air as they move about the room, getting ready to sleep. When they finally get in bed, they face each other, silent, in the dark.

Ellie breaks the silence first.

“Well…goodnight.”

Before Aster can respond, she moves forward, presses her lips to Aster’s, and turns around to sleep.

Aster blinks. Her heart is beating so fast, she’s surprised Ellie can pretend to sleep through it.

“Goodnight,” she whispers.

When the first light of dawn breaks through the curtains, Aster opens her eyes slowly to find herself curled around Ellie. It takes her brain a moment to catch up with the familiar scent of Ellie’s hair under her nose, the sight of her arm flung safely across Ellie’s waist, the feeling of her in her arms, breathing softly. She can’t remember the last time she felt so comfortable. Of course, as if on cue, the panic rises in her throat like bile. She swallows down the familiar edge of fear and tries to extricate herself. As she shifts, Ellie whines in her sleep. She gives up and focuses instead on breathing deeply to slow down her heart rate.

An hour later, she feels Ellie wake up, slowly, and then all at once when she registers the domesticity of their sleeping position. She doesn’t pull away. Instead, she turns around to face Aster. Her eyes are wide.

“You spooned me.”

“Good morning to you, too.”

“Also, your breath is bad.”

The voice in her head is once again screaming about sin and abomination. She shoves it into a corner. Muffles it as usual, then rolls her eyes and closes the gap between them to kiss her.

\---

She drops Ellie off at Grinnell, where Joleen is waiting to let her into their new dorm room. She likes Joleen, has done virtual movie nights with the two of them, so she tries very hard not to feel smug at the brief look of sadness on her face at the sight of Ellie and Aster walking in together.

\---

The University of Iowa student body is about ten times the size of the entire population of Squahamish. It’s terrifying and exhilarating. She relishes the anonymity. Wonders if this is what she is to God: one in many, inconsequential in the grand scheme of things. It’s not what she was taught. It’s not really what she wants to believe, either. But there’s a freedom in thinking that God might be overlooking her sins.

\---

Their first Design Fundamentals assignment is a non-portrait self-portrait. _Interpret yourself_ , the professor says. Ellie thinks the whole thing is very pretentious, but Aster points out that Ellie’s taking Metaphysics this semester, so who is she to talk.

She knows she’s overthinking the project. She just keeps getting hung up on the question of who she is. A woman, a daughter, a friend? An aspiring artist? A Christian? She asks Ellie, one chilly Saturday in October, how she would describe Aster. They’re sitting on a picnic blanket in a park; Ellie is trying to get through mounds of reading while Aster is sketching.

She caps her highlighter, looking thoughtful. Aster privately thinks she looks beautiful like this, sitting against a tree, draped in gold foliage.

“You’re like… something boundless, barely contained behind a perfect veneer. Full of depth. You see things in ways that others don’t, which makes you a good artist. You’re slow to take risks, but bold when you do. And I think… you believe in everything and everyone more than you believe in yourself.”

Aster stares. She can never understand how Ellie says things that pierce to the core with such confidence and matter-of-factness. How she sees so clearly, interprets so quickly. Where does that faith come from? Why doesn’t Aster, raised with a sense of faith and surety, have that solid ground under her?

At her silence, Ellie shifts uncomfortably.

“Also, you have bad taste in music and pizza toppings.”

She laughs.

“That solves it, then. I’ll draw a CD that’s actually a pizza. It’ll double as a commentary on media consumption.”

“Banksy will hang himself.”

\---

In the end, she draws a version of herself as Da Vinci’s _Vitruvian Man._ A hand is yanking at each arm and leg, pulling her apart: her mom’s, her dad’s, a hand with the Squahamish symbol drawn on, and one mimicking God’s in _Creation of Adam._ In the middle of the body outline, where a chest should be, there is just a dark, black hole of nothing. She gets an A on the assignment.

\---

Ellie, now treasurer for the Asian American Alliance, pushes Aster to try a student organization and, in her words, “stop living the lonely artist stereotype.” She starts going to meetings of the Campus Christian Fellowship. It’s good, at first. She’s missed being surrounded by the comfortable buzz of other people’s faith. It centers her.

Her parents are thrilled about the group. They hope that she’ll meet a nice boy to settle down with, though, as they keep reminding her, Trig is still available. She can see the hope in their eyes that God will guide her back to them, away from all the mistakes and selfish decisions. They don’t say it, but it’s there.

It’s not that she’s not willing to listen to God. It’s just that God doesn’t weigh in one way or another. Hasn’t in a while.

(She remembers one time in particular. She is twelve. She wakes up from a dream about kissing a classmate. A girl classmate. There is ice in her stomach. Fear is threatening to claw out of her chest. She is twelve years old. She knows that she likes the color yellow, that God loves her, and that girls don’t kiss girls. That Sunday, she prays fiercely, elbows digging into the wood of the bench, eyes screwed shut in concentration.

_Please don’t let me be gay please don’t let me be gay please don’t let me be gay._

She never gets an answer. She never stops praying.)

She stares in undisguised curiosity at the people in the group. They carry themselves with such confidence. They seem so secure in their faith and knowledge. More than anything, she wants to know the taste of surety. The feeling of a brush with divinity. But when she prays for this at night, her only response is the low hum of the air conditioning.

\---

One night, she calls Paul out of the blue.

“Asterly rock!” he crows in delight. “How’s it going?”

“Do you believe in God?” she asks in lieu of a greeting. It’s the same question she asked him once before, when she thought she was falling for him.

“What? Yeah, of course.”

“How?”

“Huh?”

“When you found out about Ellie and me, how did you accept that and believe in God at the same time?

He sighs.

“I don’t know if Ellie’s told you, but I was a dick at first. I’ve apologized to her like a million times. I guess I just realized that her liking girls is just another thing about her, like how she has black hair and likes spicy food. And she shouldn’t have to hide it from anyone. But especially not from me. Best friends are supposed to make you feel safe and happy. Just like God.”

The ease of this declaration takes her breath away. Once again, Aster is struck by how everyone in the world seems to be grounded while she floats, aimless, in the stratosphere.

“And that was enough? All the stuff you’ve been taught your whole life, totally erased?”

He’s quiet for a moment.

“Not erased. I just think about it differently. No offense to your dad, but he’s a person like anyone else. He has his own ideas and stuff about the Bible that he teaches us. And then I thought, isn’t everyone just kinda doing the same thing? It’s not like everyone has the exact same ideas about God. We’re all just a bunch of people trying to figure out what He’s telling us. So I decided that my best friend being gay is His way of telling me that being gay is awesome.”

She doesn’t respond.

“What’s with the questions? You doing okay out there? Ellie quoting some old philosophy dude to prove how God doesn’t exist?”

This prompts a dry laugh.

“I’m okay. Just thinking about things. This was helpful. You’re very wise, you know.”

“Well, duh.”

\---

Her second semester, she overloads her schedule and ends up with her first C on an assignment. It’s a small project for her advanced painting class, inconsequential to her final grade, but she has a small meltdown over it anyways. She calls Ellie, who tells her that everything takes practice, and that bold art always comes with risks. She asks if Aster wants to come over for the weekend, but Aster declines. She calls her parents, who remind her that they love her, and that she is always welcome to change her mind about school and come home. She calls God, who doesn’t answer.

She ends up dropping the class, on her advisor’s recommendation. It’s not a big deal, she tells herself. Plenty of people do this. It’s not a failure, just a strategic retreat.

But after cancelling on Ellie for the fourth time in a row and dodging her parents’ calls for the tenth, she lies in bed, empty, thinking there isn’t a single person in her life that she isn’t disappointing.

Eventually, Ellie knocks on her door in concern. Aster feels guilty for the expensive Uber she must have just taken, when she spots Joleen’s car in the parking lot. She’s filled with a rare moment of petty jealousy.

She doesn’t mean to pick a fight. But she knows that Ellie is waiting her to figure it out, to suddenly reconcile her faith and her feelings, or to give up her faith altogether. And Aster can’t even figure out how to balance the different people and expectations in her life, let alone her internal state. When Ellie asks her if she’s okay, she snaps.

“I’m not. And I know you want me to be miraculously okay, but I’m not there yet.”

Ellie’s eyes widen, taken aback.

“Woah, it’s not that. I mean yes, I want you to be okay, but on your own time. How can I help?”

There’s a ridiculous pain rising in her throat.

“You can stop looking at me like you’re counting down the days until I start calling myself a lesbian too, or put the pride flag on my wall. Just because that worked for you, doesn’t mean it’s who I am. I have no _idea_ what I am, and I don’t need you hovering around while I figure it out.”

Ellie is pale. Tears are welling in her eyes.

“Aster, I’ve never… I’m so sorry, I never meant to make you feel like that.” (And Aster knows this, knows how unfair and cruel she’s being). “I just wanted you to know that I’m here, if you need me. And that I care about you. I always have.”

Aster’s eyes burn as she blinks back her own tears. She looks away.

“I just think we need some time apart.”

There’s only silence on the other end of the room, and then the sound of footsteps towards the door.

“Okay.”

Then the door shuts, and Aster is alone again.

\---

Outside of a few messages, they don’t talk for the rest of the semester. She finishes the term with all A’s. Come summertime, Ellie lets her know that she’s doing an internship for the first half of summer, and that she would take the train back to Squahamish when it ended. Aster drives back to Washington alone, missing Ellie with a fierce ache that never subsides.

As much as she wants to, she doesn’t reach out to Paul. She wants Ellie to have his undivided support. She doesn’t deserve his friendship right now, anyways. Still, she wakes up one morning to a message from him.

 _paulmunskyawesomesauceguy:_ _🍔_ _+_ _🍟_ _+_ _🥤_ _? noon?_

 _paulmunskyawesomesauceguy: theres no milkshake emoji…_ _😠😠😠_

_AsterlyRock: Okay. It’s on me._

_paulmunskyawesomesauceguy: yea it is lol_

He smiles wide at her when she comes in, dimpling, and for a moment, she feels okay. He’s already ordered their usual, and pushes a plate of fries towards her when she sits down. Without preamble, he begins.

“So, I think you’re being stupid.”

She stops eating, mid-fry.

“I know this is hard for you. I can’t even imagine how hard it is for you. But you know it’s not easy for Ellie, right? She’s felt alone her whole life in Squahamish, because she’s Chinese and people always call her chu-chu and other stupid shit. And she’s been doing her dad’s job since her mom died, even though she had to go to school. _And_ she made time to write other people’s essays to pay her bills and stuff. She works harder than anyone.”

He pauses and looks at her meaningfully. She puts the rest of the fry down.

“I know you know it wasn’t easy for her to realize she’s gay. Come on, you know Ellie. She puts on a tough act because she’s had to be strong her whole life. But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t hard for her. And she deserves to be whatever she wants, after looking after everyone else all the time.”

He dips his fry into the milkshake, swirls.

“And that... is the end of my speech.”

“I know,” she replies quietly. “I know all this. I’ve felt terrible about it since it happened. I just don’t know how to fix it. She deserves better than me. I’m a _mess._ ”

Her voice breaks on that word.

“You’re not a mess! You’re awesome! You’re figuring it out, like everyone else. But you don’t get to treat her like crap or make decisions for her. If you don’t want to be with her, tell her that. Otherwise, let her decide what she wants.”

She nods. After a second, he launches into a story about how he burned his hand in a deep fryer, and they don’t talk about it anymore.

\---

A few weeks later, she gets an email from him.

> _From:_ [ _pmunskies@gmail.com_ ](mailto:pmunskies@gmail.com)
> 
> _To:_ [ _aster.flores@gmail.com_ ](mailto:aster.flores@gmail.com)
> 
> _Subject: Did u know university of iowa has lgbtq christian group?_
> 
> _Body: it’s called love works. look it up! they had this cool article on their website I’m attaching._
> 
> _Attachment: From_A_Rabbi_Open_Letter.html_

She [opens it](https://www.myjewishlearning.com/keshet/from-a-rabbi-an-open-letter-to-people-who-are-lgbtq/?utm_content=buffera5757&utm_medium=social&utm_source=mjlfacebook&utm_campaign=buffer#).

> # From a Rabbi, An Open Letter to People Who Are LGBTQ
> 
> BY [RABBI SHAI HELD](https://www.myjewishlearning.com/author/rabbi-shai-held/) | JUNE 16, 2016
> 
> _“I’d like to share a message that I believe lies at the very heart of Jewish theology: God loves you. (Don’t let anyone tell you that this idea is exclusively Christian; it isn’t.)_
> 
> [ _Rabbi Akiva_ ](https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/rabbi-akiba/) _, one of Judaism’s greatest sages, tells us that each and every human being is beloved by God because we are—all of us, without exception—created in the image of God. In other words, you don’t need to earn God’s love; it is given to you with your existence, the gift of a loving God._
> 
> _No amount of hatred or bigotry can ever change that simple but stunning fact: As a human being, you matter, and matter ultimately._
> 
> _One of the biggest problems with religion is that people stubbornly, insistently reduce God to their own size; they imagine that God loves the same people they love, and that God hates the people they hate. This is not just insidious theology; it’s actually idolatry, because people are just worshiping a blown-up version of themselves. So let me say it simply: God’s love transcends all of that._
> 
> _When your parents reject you, God loves you; when your friends or classmates make fun of you, God loves you; when your priest, minister, imam, or rabbi tells you that you are an abomination, God loves you; when politicians cater to people’s basest prejudices, God loves you. No matter how many times and in how many ways people make you feel less than human, God knows otherwise, and God loves you. When you feel frightened, or abandoned, or humiliated, I hope the unshakeable conviction that God loves you can help hold you and enable you to persevere._
> 
> _What it really means to be a religious person is to strive to love the people God loves — which means, ultimately, to try to love everyone. Where this is concerned, the history of human civilization is filled with one horrific failure after another. White people still struggle to see that people of color are no less human, and no less precious than they; people who are wealthy often forget that people who are poor are no less human, and no less precious, than they; people who are able-bodied all too often fail to see that people with disabilities are no less human, and no less precious, than they; and yes, people who are straight are just beginning to see that people of varying sexual orientations and identities are no less human, and no less precious, than they. As a theologian and a pastor, I would just like to beg you: Don’t let other people’s confusions and biases make you forget. God loves you, and you are no less human, and no less precious than anyone else.”_

She reads it again. Then again, and again. Something heavy is lifting from her, making her lightheaded.

She dresses quickly and walks to the church. Thankfully, it’s empty. Her only company is the thick fog of incense. When she kneels to pray, the words spill out of her, tumbling for release.

“So, here’s the thing. I think Ellie was right when she said that I believe in everyone more than myself. I keep telling myself that I have a duty to you and my parents. But if you made me, and I have a duty to love all of your creations, I’m supposed to love myself too. But I _don’t_.”

She chokes on the last sentence, the realization that comes with it.

“How can I, when I prioritize everyone else’s expectations over what I want? You’re supposed to love me unconditionally. And I think you do. Or at least, I hope you do. But that got lost in everyone else’s interpretations. And I listened, because I always do. But… I want to listen to myself, now. I want to try to love myself as I am, because that’s what _you’re_ supposed to do.”

The last part floats out of her, soft as a breath:

“I like girls. I don’t want to fight it anymore.”

She tenses at the admission, but the church stays stable, calm. The ground doesn’t open and swallow her up into hellfire. No hand of judgment comes down on her. Everything is still and silent, and a sob bursts out of her in relief. She cries helplessly, joyfully, still kneeling on the bench.

\---

She greets Ellie at the train station with a signed edition of Joseph Campbell’s “The Hero with A Thousand Faces” that she won after an agonizing bidding war on Ebay, and braised pork that she made after hours of cooking lessons from Ellie’s dad.

Ellie accepts the gifts, looking wary. She’s chopped off most of her hair, is now sporting an undercut. Her sleeves are rolled up to her elbows. She takes Aster’s breath away.

“What’s up, Flores?”

“Just dropping off some welcome home gifts. And… I wanted to ask if we could talk, sometime this summer. I need to apologize.”

“Yeah, you do.”

Aster nods. Ellie looks at her, evaluating.

“I’ll text you when I’m ready to talk. Thanks for this stuff.”

She smiles, and Ellie smiles back, tentatively.

\---

It’s a week before she gets a message.

_SmithCorona: 4.5/5 on the braised pork. Could use more spice, but the flavors were excellent._

_DiegaRivero: I learned from the best. Glad you liked it._

_SmithCorona: I’ll need to hear about how the cooking lessons went._

_DiegaRivero: Mineral spring? Tomorrow?_

_SmithCorona: Let’s do Sparky’s._

Not as private as their spring, but Aster recognizes she’s being thrown a bone. (She makes a mental note that she’s started calling it “their” spring. She likes it.) When she picks Ellie up, she’s struck again by the familiar face, the smudged glasses, the perpetually short fingernails that only recently lost their grease undercoat. Her heart aches with how much she’s missed this, missed her.

It’s awkward, at first. The two of them shift around uncomfortably until their food arrives. Finally, Aster can’t take it anymore.

“I’m sorry-”

“So, I was-”

They speak at the same time, then gesture at each other to continue at the same time. Aster laughs awkwardly and continues.

“I’m sorry, Ellie. I’ve needed to say it for a long time. I was completely unfair to you, when all you were trying to do was be there for me. I know it’s not an excuse, but I haven’t been handling anything well. I underestimated how hard it would be, figuring myself out and accepting change. I’m so sorry that I treated you like that. And… I’ve missed you so much, these past few weeks.”

Ellie nods and chews on a fry, thoughtful. She looks at Aster.

“You seem different.”

“I feel different.”

“Different how?”

At the end of the long-winded explanation about grief and faith and guilt, Ellie smiles.

“So, still a Bible-thumper then?”

Aster smiles too.

“Still a Heathen, then?”

Ellie rolls her eyes and steals fries from Aster’s plate, even though there are plenty on her own.

They stay until closing. She hears all about Ellie’s internship at the Iowa Newspaper Association and thrills that she seems to be letting go of the Engineering track and following a writing career. Aster pulls up pictures of her paintings from the last semester for Ellie’s critique. Ellie tells a story about one of the interns at the newsroom that has them crying of laughter by the end. As they’re about to leave, Ellie captures Aster’s hand on the table.

“I missed you, too.”

Aster releases a breath she didn’t know she was holding.

“Don’t shut me out like that again.”

She promises not to.

\---

It’s another three months before Ellie kisses her again. They’re at the Stanley Museum of Art, where Aster is researching the current exhibit for a paper. She’s commenting on the color scheme and brush strokes in one particular painting when she realizes that nobody is responding. She looks over to see Ellie watching her with a soft, fond expression. Before she can question it, she lunges forward and kisses Aster, right in the middle of the gallery. Then, she straightens up and turns back to the painting.

“Right, what were you saying about the use of blue and green?”

\---

Ellie becomes the editor for the Scarlet & Black, Grinnell’s newspaper. Aster demands that she save her a copy of every edition, which she frames meticulously. Ellie rolls her eyes.

\---

The first time it happens, they are awkward and don’t know what they’re doing. Aster is an RA now, which thankfully grants her a single room. They are kissing urgently, dizzily, with no room to breathe. Ellie’s glasses poke her in the eye and nose until Aster pauses and gets rid of them. Aster trails kisses down Ellie’s neck and runs her teeth, gently, over the place on her collarbone that always makes her shiver. Then bites down, hard enough that it turns into a full-body shudder. Ellie gasps and grabs her hair.

Aster sucks in a deep breath herself at the sensation. She looks back up at Ellie, who nods.

“Are you sure?”

“God, shut up and keep going.” 

The breathlessness undercuts her tone.

She keeps going. Ellie strips off her shirt and bra. When Aster does the same, it gets caught in her hair, which is decidedly un-sexy and makes Ellie snicker. She glares and kisses her hard, cutting her off mid-laugh. At the sharp intake of breath, she knows she’s got Ellie’s attention again.

Slowly, tentatively, she places her lips around one star-like nipple and sucks. Ellie gasps and arches, electric, off the bed. She does it again, this time lightly grazing her teeth over the nipple. Ellie moans deep, her body convulsing. The sound goes right to the pit of Aster’s stomach, until Ellie’s elbow knocks right into Aster’s face, breaking the spell and possibly her nose.

When they get going again, it’s slower, gentler. Ellie trails her hands across Aster’s sides, reverently. Where the fingers trace, her skin pebbles up. She shivers, and guides Ellie’s hand lower, lower. Ellie does the same with Aster’s.

It takes a minute to build the rhythm, the heat, the friction, the slick of their lips against one another’s, but soon they are gasping into each other’s mouths as the waves of pleasure hit, again and again. She is grasping at Ellie, grinding aimlessly, sweating and panting. She thinks, wildly, back to the times when she wished for a glimpse of the divine. If this isn’t it, she can’t imagine what would be.

\---

For Ellie’s birthday the following year, they drive ten hours to Badlands National Park. The rock formations are like something out of a sci-fi setting, alternating layers of red, white, and tan. There are jagged peaks as far as the eye can see, and she can almost imagine that the world doesn’t exist outside of them and this maze of rock.

“Isn’t it amazing?” Ellie says, softly. “All those years of deposition and erosion, adding and subtracting, to end up here.”

Aster had been thinking something similar, with one caveat. Here, with wind whistling on the Midwest plains, the tapestry of canyon stretching ahead of her, she wonders if God is proud of this creation that sand, wind, and rain chiseled over thousands of years. She wonders if God is proud of her.

The go stargazing in the park, pop the trunk and sit under a blanket. The stars blink into existence slowly, and then all at once, until there isn’t an inch of sky that isn’t studded with silver. When it is clear enough to see the Milky Way, she marvels at how they are seeing the distant reaches of the galaxy, reduced to a fine dusting of stars in the sky. Something in her chest tightens, and she squeezes Ellie’s hand. Ellie squeezes back. She glances at her; Ellie is looking upward, starlight reflecting in her glasses, her pale neck almost luminous. It takes her breath away more than the stars do.

She looks back at the sky and prays for nothing in particular.

A firefly glows in the distance. Then three, five, ten more. The wind raises her hair from her forehead, whips it around. The stars wink at her. Ellie is tracing the Sagittarius constellation with her finger, one eye closed, head tilted. This time, everything in the cosmos feels like an answer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My girls.... I love them.... 
> 
> Note: I hope it doesn't seem like I just think Aster is Fixed after this, she clearly has a lot to work on. I just wanted a moment where she chose herself. She deserves it.


	3. Epilogue: 10 years later

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He’s unlocking the door when his phone rings, which makes him promptly drop the keys.

He’s unlocking the door when his phone rings, which makes him promptly drop the keys. He shuffles the laptop bag to his back and grabs them, though not before the bag swings forward and smacks him in the head. Swearing, he enters the apartment, one hand rubbing his forehead, the opposite leg blocking Milkshake from darting out. He doesn’t even check the Caller ID, just answers blindly, collapsing on the sofa.

“Paul?”

“Ari Aster, what’s up? Why are you up so bright and early?”

“I know you’re only in town for a short while, so I wanted to catch you. Are you still at the airport?”

Milkshake jumps onto his lap and flops onto her back, purring loudly. He kisses the closest paw and scratches her head.

“Nope, just got home. You caught me just as I was getting in the door. Red-eyes suck, by the way. I have another one tonight. So annoying.”

“That’s actually why I’m calling. I know you’re probably exhausted, but I was hoping we could have an early dinner tonight. It’s important. I’m buying!”

“I could swing that. Where do you want to go?”

“Up to you. Derby? Rain City?”

“Doesn’t Ellie hate those places?”

There’s a pause.

“Oh, Ellie isn’t around tonight. It’s just you and me.”

While it’s not unusual for the three of them to pair off, this strikes Paul as odd, not least because Ellie was just texting him about having the evening off. Whatever. He’ll find out what’s going on eventually.

“Gotcha. Derby is good, then. See you at six?”

\---

He’s only been asleep for two hours when the phone rings again. Milkshake leaps away from where she was curled up on his chest, annoyed. He’s annoyed too, especially when he sees who’s calling.

“I was asleep.”

“I know. But I’m monitoring a situation and need your insight.”

“Ugh, can’t it wait? I haven’t gotten more than five hours of sleep all week.”

“That’s your own fault for being so successful. Make worse sausage next time. Now, on to my problems. Are you coming to the gallery opening next week?”

“Obviously. Don’t tell me you woke me up to ask me about something I already sent an RSVP for. Do you know the last time I RSVP’d for something? Literally never.”

“Will you get over the sleep thing? Pay attention. You know how she won’t commit to the final piece? Her assistant dropped by with it an hour ago. I guess she was trying to catch her before she left, but she was out super early today. Anyways, I opened it, and it’s just a blank canvas!”

His head is foggy.

“…Okay?”

“Like it’s literally just a brand-new canvas! There’s not even a coat of primer on it. Do you think she’s trying to make some big statement about the importance of minimalism? I thought she outgrew this pretentious phase years ago.”

“Have you considered that it’s just a blank canvas and _not_ the final piece?”

“Obviously. The label is very specific. And it matches the tag on the canvas. I should tell her it’s a bad idea, right? You’re supposed to stop loved ones from making stupid decisions.”

“I think that’s like… the opposite of what you’re supposed to do.”

“So, what, I just watch her reveal a blank canvas like it’s some inspired piece of art?”

“I mean, yeah. We support her and then we make fun of her later, in private.”

“Ugh. I wish just once you’d be wrong about something.”

“There was that time I thought you were straight.”

“Oh yeah. That makes up for all the rightness.”

“I’m hanging up now.”

He immediately falls back asleep.

\---

It’s not even an hour later when he’s woken up by the phone, _again._

“I’m going to kill you.”

“I know, just a quick question. Did she tell you what she has planned for our anniversary this weekend? I can’t have her showing me up.”

He blinks slowly, sits up.

“Wait, it’s your anniversary this weekend?”

“Oh great, that shows what you know. Never mind. You’re useless to me.”

After she hangs up, Paul stays awake, thinking.

\---

It’s on very little sleep that he meets a very nervous-looking Aster for dinner. She insists on paying, tells him again and again to order whatever he wants. He squints at her, still not sure if he’s right about what’s happening.

When she reminds him for the fourth time that he should feel free to order another drink, he can’t take it anymore.

“Okay, Asteronomy. Spit it out. What’s going on?”

She sighs and nods. Places her arms on the table.

“I have to ask you something. You’re family, and the most important person in Ellie’s life. So it feels important to run it past you, first.”

He grins, suspicions coming true. He can barely hear her stammering explanations past the excitement ringing in his ears. Finally, she brings something out from her purse, asks him the question.

He approves the ring and the proposal, with the caveat that his company caters the wedding. Then, he lifts her into a bear hug and refuses to put her down until she threatens to take him off the gallery invite list.

\---

> **_The Seattle Times,_ “Seattle Artist Displays Proposal Painting in Gallery,” August 20th, 2030.**
> 
> “Up and coming Seattle artist Aster Flores opened her second gallery last week to a clamoring crowd. Her paintings have been described by critics as ‘Kahloesque’ in their style and theme. Several paintings sold immediately, though most attendees wanted the one piece they couldn’t have, a late addition unveiled especially by Flores.
> 
> The beauty of the piece is in its origin story. Aster Flores describes the work as a joint effort between her and her partner, Ellie Chu, notable journalist and award-winning author of _‘Asian Americana: Immigrant Lives in Small Town America’._ The two describe a long-standing tradition of building on each other’s brushstrokes to produce a final art piece. Flores reportedly used this tradition to propose, cleverly using the shapes and strokes on the canvas to spell out ‘Will you marry me?’ as the final contribution to the painting. The gallery opening doubled as the couple’s engagement celebration.
> 
> The piece, titled “Bold Strokes,” is available for viewing, alongside several other celebrated works, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. in the Aster Flores gallery in downtown Seattle."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's a wrap! Thanks to everyone who read, commented, left kudos! These kiddos are gonna live happily ever after.


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